26-year-old Tarundeep Rai lost to South Korean Woojin Kim 28-28, 27-28, 29-28, 27-28, 27-29 in the Men's Individual Recurve final at the Asian Games on Wednesday.
Despite losing, the winner of the Arjuna Award conferred by the Government of India back in 2005 for his tremendous contribution to the nation through his consistent and outstanding performances in the game of Archery, set his
name in the annals of history by becoming the first Indian to bag a silver medal in the Men’s Single Archery event at the Asian Games in Guangzhou.
The professional archer from India provided an important lead to his foe in the final set as the right hander shot an eight pointer in his first attempt. In spite of the fact that he made changes in the following two attempts by
winning nine points each however those did not prove enough in the end to stop the South Korean from capturing gold in the end.
As a result, Rai who was placed 32nd in the Men's Individual Ranking at the Summer Olympics back in 2004 had to be content with a silver medal.
The Indian who was also a member of the eleventh spot Indian Men's Archery Team at the Summer Olympics back in 2004, started his Asian Games campaign strongly with a comfortable victory over Kien Trong Dao of Vietnam 5-1, which
was followed by another win over Sian Chu Cheng from Malaysia 6-2.
One of the most famous sportspersons hailing from North-Eastern Indian then got the better of Jinhyek Oh of Korea 26-27, 30-26, 28-28, 29-27, 28-27 in the 8th round in China.
Rai, who made his debut in International Archery at the age of 19, continued his impressive form in the semifinal round as he once again did well to beat Taipei's Chia Chun Sung 29-29, 26-30, 30-27, 28-26, 29-28 to confirm his
place in the final.
Elsewhere, the other Indian in the fray, Rahul Banerjee who captured a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games last month in New Delhi, finished his campaign on a disappointing note as he could not even reach the final 8th round after
the Indian surrendered without posing any major threat to Chun Chia Sung of Taipei 27-28, 24-25, 24-26.
Tags: